


Before The Beginning

by atimeforflores



Series: Tommy In the Runaways [1]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Prequel, Prequel for Tommy In The Runaways which is yet to be released oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5158352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atimeforflores/pseuds/atimeforflores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this is a prequel for another story I'm working on that I hope will be out soon. Comment please, and follow me on Tumblr? </p>
<p>gaysupersoldiers.tumblr.com</p></blockquote>





	Before The Beginning

His mom used to call him energetic, shining a tired smile as she pushed her almost too long brown bangs out of her face, the rest secured snugly on the base of her neck. She used to say it lovingly as she helped him with his math homework patiently as he wiggled and bounced in the hard wooden chairs that sat at the kitchen table. His dad would roll his eyes, snagging another beer from the fridge before trudging back to the recliner in the living room, though not before placing a light tap on Tommy’s head and telling him to “settle his ass down”. Mary’s eyes would be adverted, her pale skin looking washed out in her lavender scrubs and mousy brown hair looking greasy.

As he got older the words got less sweet, the look less fond. Frank would still smack his head but Mary would begin to get up, “Don’t touch my fucking son!”

“No?” Frank would spit out, getting up in her face and breathing his alcohol breath onto her, “You’re going to tell me how to discipline my fucking son?”

It was around then that his eyes started getting lighter, going from a dark brown to a hazel until finally settling in a startling green, Mom way too exhausted to worry other than asking some questions at the hospital. When his dark brown hair started falling out, he tried to hide it, wearing hoods and combing it differently but his too small hands couldn’t do much.

“The boy is fine!” Frank would bellow, throwing a beer bottle at Mary and watching it shatter against the wall. Tommy cowered in the kitchen, back firmly pressed against the wall in the small space between the fridge and the wall, the trash can situated in front of him. His legs had started to itch earlier that week, him clawing at them and leaving red welts from bitten nails and trails of blood where his fingers had caught too many times. He would come out later, after he could hear Frank’s loud snores from the other room and Mary’s angry scrubbing at the sink.

He’d walk to the table, slowly, before sitting down and pulling out his homework. He would tap his foot, trying to concentrate as his mom put a glass of chocolate milk in front of him. But then he wobbled a little to much, little arms flailing as his knee knocked into the table and the milk pitched over the edge. He watched in slow motion as it landed on the ceramic of the floor, glass shattering and milk going everywhere.

“Goddamn it, Tommy!” Mary said sharply, turning to him as her black eye was shadowed in the dusk that lit the kitchen, “Can’t you sit still for one minute?”

His lip wobbled, and he felt tears gather in his eyes, staring at Mary until she groaned in disgust.

“I need a smoke.” She muttered, leaving the room. He tried to mop up the milk, glass slicing into little palms and knobbly knees, until Frank found him. His dad stared down at him with stormy blue eyes, before sighing and taking him to the bathroom, painfully extracting little bits of glass.

“That’s not a man’s job.” Frank confided to him, pouring alcohol over the cuts and ignoring Tommy’s hiss of pain. 

When Tommy looked into the mirror in the bathroom, after Frank went back downstairs for more beer, he stared at himself with bandages covering his hands and bright green eyes and spotted hair, his legs started to itch more and more. 

It all came to a head when Tommy came home with a big fat F on his spelling test, not having be able to focus on it in class with everything going on. Frank had yelled, grabbing him by his almost all white hair and snarling in his face like a wild animal while Mary stood off to the side with her arms crossed. She looked angry, clutching the paper with a white knuckled grip. Frank let go of his head, raising one arm and getting ready to strike.

And Tommy moved. He saw it come down in slow motion, a carefully practiced arc coming straight for his head. He didn’t want it to hit him, didn’t want to have to lie about the bruise on his face to teachers who actually didn’t care that much. It was taking forever to get to him, so he turned on his heel and ran. 

They found him later that night, huddled under his bed and shaking with sobs. Though, he did notice that his legs no longer itched.

He could hear Mary grab her car keys, saying she needed to go on a drive. And he could also hear Frank, hissed like a poison, “A fucking _mutie._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a prequel for another story I'm working on that I hope will be out soon. Comment please, and follow me on Tumblr? 
> 
> gaysupersoldiers.tumblr.com


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